"Ghosts and the Academic Séance" panel
Space, Haunting, Discourse conference, Karlstad University, Karlstad,
Sweden
15-18 June 2006

What do we—as academics—believe in when we believe in ghosts? These
phenomena, which can be found in practically every aspect of popular
culture, from horror films to tabloids to reality TV shows, are often
dismissed by enlightened minds as incredible superstitions. As
academics with a genuine curiosity, we try to understand the issues of
ghosts and haunting through more "legitimate" theoretical mediums, the
most popular being psychoanalysis and the frameworks of the uncanny and
the return of the repressed. But are our readings of haunting to be
always conceived through the lens of repressed psychic desires? Can
they overcome the borders and boundaries of the individual and
collective unconscious? Can the strangeness of ghosts be something
other than uncanny? What are other ways of approaching these beings-
in/of-repetition?

If ghosts are studied in terms of the spaces they occupy, we can
problematize haunting by grounding the ghost, understanding it through
a sense of place. If a ghost occupies a place, dialectical discourses
can emerge between the pasts and the presents of locations, the living
and dead landscapes. In this panel, we seek approaches that
investigate hauntings through conjugations of methodologies—
intersections of historical, literary and political discourses—to
create new readings of the persistence of ghosts in our culture.

We also invite papers that discuss the problems surrounding the
different methodologies used to approach haunting in literature, film,
and historical narratives from different periods and national
traditions. We encourage submissions from all disciplines that
challenge previously used theoretical frameworks in search of new ways
of understanding these strange and fascinating intersections of pasts
and presents.

Abstracts should be 250-300 words in length. The deadline for
submission is October 15, 2005. Please send them to María del Pilar
Blanco, mdb227_at_nyu.edu.

Conference website: http://www.kk.kau.se/eng/conf/space/index.html

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Received on Fri Aug 12 2005 - 11:07:34 EDT